ICTF Conference 2019

Dr. Sibel Allinson (Sr. Project Manager, UIS, Cambridge)

How can better, cheaper and faster co-exist? Agile and Lean are wildly popularized in the software development space for helping teams deliver faster and more sustainably. Agile development is a process for rapid software delivery that is connected to many Lean principles. Lean encourages teams to deliver fast by managing flow - limiting the amount of work-in-process to reduce context switching and improve focus. Agile teams manage flow by working in cross-functional teams on delivering one iteration at a time, where the value could be created in a very short time and continuously. This presentation will provide examples of the contrasts and overlaps, and try to answer some of the resulting and pressing questions.

Xavier Laurent, Christina Kuhn and Stephen Taylor (University of Oxford)

Dr Christina Kuhn recently introduced Virtual Reality (VR) teaching to Ancient History students in the Humanities Division at Oxford. Student feedback was positive throughout: they agreed that unlike most visual media, VR really brought the past to life. This session will show how virtual reality can be used in a university teaching context and assesses to what extent the students’ learning experience and understanding of a topic can be enhanced by providing them with fully immersive experiences.

Michael Hauser (Deputy IT Manager, Robinson College, Cambridge)

A good defence has always been crucial to maintaining a good secure network. The usual paraphernalia (using firewalls, strong passwords, not using administrator/root accounts persistently, VLANs, IDS, IPS, updated Antivirus, Anti-malware, patched systems, NATing, 2 Factor Authentication, etc.) is simply not enough today. As IT we need to succeed always, whereas the attacker needs to succeed only ONCE! Enter the “deception platform” to help you in the battle of good vs evil!

Chris Mackie (Nexus Team, University of Oxford)

This talk is all about Microsoft Teams. Come along see how Teams works, find out what is new and how you could benefit from using Teams. There will be some interactive elements to this talk so please bring a device that can access N365 Teams.

Graham Ingram (University of Oxford)

A mirage is an act of physics which can occasionally play on the desperation of a person due to the situation they are in. The security mirage is an act of technology which always plays on the needs of a person executing processes in everyday situations. Like the physical world, the information security reality is often different to perception. The journey toward our goals can feel like a slog. But the real threat is to give up and succumb to the environment; we must keep going and search for that elusive oasis.

Dave Smith (IT Services, University of Oxford)

Over the last 6 months in IT services, Dave has been leading an exercise to develop a common storage reference model. The big idea was to see if it could be used to tease out shared requirements across a number of projects and then help identify common solutions to solve all/part of their requirements.

Dave believes that you might find the approach useful in other areas of IT so if you are looking at sharing, reusing or removing technology then come along .

Ran Michaeli (Keble College, University of Oxford)

During the workshop, Ran will be sharing his experience managing small and large-scale AV projects, and have an open discussion with the participants to share thoughts and workflows. The session is aimed at both IT and AV support staff.

Dr Marc Fabri (Leeds Beckett University)

This talk will introduce the challenges and opportunities many young autistic students encounter during their higher education journey. Details and findings will be presented from two EU-funded research projects: Autism&Uni which focused on the transition into university, and IMAGE which is currently ongoing and focuses on the transition out of university, into the workplace. Both projects have a strong digital angle with the design of online toolkits specifically aimed at autistic students.

Both projects champion two important principles: Firstly, a strength-based view of autism that focuses on skills and abilities rather than deficits. And secondly a universal design approach to learning that provides choices, depending on an individual's preferences and abilities. This puts the onus on universities to consider how established practices and technologies must change to fully support autistic students in an inclusive way - and any other group of students.

Jonny Austin (Micro:bit Educational Foundation)

This ‘talk’ is very hands-on. Jonny will bring some micro:bits with him and you will have the opportunity to see what they do. (Bringing your own device with USB input would be beneficial) Or perhaps you are just interested in having a very gentle introduction to programming.

Pradyumna Dash - AWS Solution Architect ; Public Sector Anjanesh Babu - Systems Architect and Network Manager ; Gardens and Museums

The session will begin with an introduction to AWS services within the context of the Oxford University and a demo of a live service. The technical relationships between the public cloud and on premise solutions are intended to discussed to be followed by how the GLAM Digital Programme's one year experience of public cloud in AWS. If you are thinking of adopting public cloud and have questions relating to a real world experience within an Oxford University department along with an technical introduction to the world of AWS - this is where you want to be.

Thomas Briggs (Bletchley Park)

An exploration of Enigma’s lesser-known cousin, Lorenz, and the thought processes that led to its breaking.

Ronald Haynes (University Computer Officer, Cambridge)

Rapid developments in digital library collections, particularly with extensive adoption of the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF), have helped substantially establish standards for digitally sharing (and preserving) art, books, manuscripts and other 2D materials. Web-based viewers enable reassembling of originals or creation of composites from remote pieces. The IIIF 3D Community includes key projects which present 2D images and 3D models together using web-based viewers, use a mainstay file format, and have inbuilt concern for digital preservation. Alongside this, WebXR is evolving as a development and delivery standard by major organisations, and can form part of a collaborative AR initiative (Veholder.org) to help blend and extend the existing collections. Working with libraries and museums in several universities, the 2D and emerging 3D standards will guide a proposed joint project to bring together Charles Darwin's writings and instruments with an AR reuniting of his separated botanical, geological and zoological samples.